When the new vicar went to Cantrip he found Church matters in a very primitive state. After a short time he introduced "Hymns Ancient and Modern." One day one of the farmers met him, and said, "What is this new hymn-book, sir? I don't like it." The vicar, thinking he was in for a theological discussion, said, "What don't you like?" "Why," said the farmer, "I don't like them words." "What words?" "Why, them words as they sing now; I am not used to them." Being pressed as to the particular words, he at last confessed that he never had sung any words at all before, but only "one, two, three, four," and he thought having any words at all a very dangerous innovation.
A Cornish rector had a tickling cough, and was recommended by his doctor to go to Exeter and have his uvula cut, which he did. Some time afterwards another patient, suffering in the same way, applied to the same doctor, who wrote a little note to the rector, asking him who had shortened his uvula, and how it had succeeded. The doctor wrote a very bad hand, and the clergyman read "roller" for "uvula." It happened that he had lately had a stone roller shortened that it might pass through a garden gate, so he wrote back, "Dear sir, it was done by a stonemason in the village. He cut off eighteen inches, and it is now six feet long, and answers thoroughly."
Mr. Burgon had a class of young ladies at Oxford, and had occasion to mention the Targums, when he stopped and said, "By the way, do any of you young ladies know what a Targum is?" One of them replied, "It's a bird with white wings, rather larger than a partridge."
A curate at Witney in 1888 called upon a parishioner for the first time, and found him at home. The man received him with the utmost coolness, proceeded to take down a bust of Disraeli from a shelf, placed it on the table before the curate, and said, "Now, sir, be you for 'im, or be you for t' other un?" This was to determine whether to be friendly or not.
The late Mr. William Lyttelton, Rector of Hagley, told me one day that he had just met an old lady who stammered very badly. She told Mr. Lyttelton that she had just lost a cousin, and, being distressed, had sent for her clergyman to console her. "And what d-d-do you th-think the man d-d-d-d-did, Mr. Lyttelton?" she said. "I'm sure I don't know," he replied. "Why, he read me all ab-b-bout D-d-david and B-b-b-bathsheba! A very g-g-good man, you know, Mr. Lyttelton, b-b-but not j-j-judicious!"
A friend of mine, an Archdeacon, at a dinner of professors at Göttingen, sat by Wieseler, who descanted on the excellence of the English Church, and was especially charmed with what he heard of bishops sinking their personality and becoming known only by the name of their sees. He himself had learnt more from one of them than from any foreign writer: he referred to the great Thomas Carlyle.
The present Vicar of Almondbury went to a barber's shop in Chatham to have his hair cut at the time that he was curate there. The artist asked him if he had known his son at Oxford, and explained that he had meant him for his own profession, but he hadn't the brains for it, so he sent him into the Church.
Transcriber's Notes:
hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original
Page 9, foun among others ==> found among others